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Ravik snorted, his mood reluctantly lighting a little. “You wish, old man.”
“Hardly. I’m barely five years older than you,” Krygor said in a dismissive tone. Turning towards me, he whispered in a conspiratorial voice. “Do not let a few grey hairs fool you. It is proof that I possess the wisdom he lacks. When you tire of him and want a real man, look me up.”
I bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing, loving their banter. Looking at Anton’s father, one would never guess at the humorous and rebellious persona behind the fearsome face. And he was right; had I not met Ravik first, I definitely would have been drawn to Krygor, especially knowing the hardships he had faced to protect his half-breed son.
“Do not make me crack your skull open, Krygor Aldriss,” Ravik hissed, only half-joking.
Krygor waved a hand, unfazed. “Not today, you won’t, unless you want to have one less voice for this morning’s vote. Come on, pup, and kiss your woman goodbye. We have a council meeting to attend.”
Ravik scrunched his face as if he’d bitten into something sour. Standing before him, I combed my fingers through his hair and lifted my face to look at him. His expression softened but the worry lingered in his eyes.
“Stop fretting, big boy,” I said playfully. “You know they will keep me safe, and I’m not helpless.”
He harrumphed but didn’t resist when I drew his face towards mine. Rising to my tippy toes, I rubbed my nose against his before giving him a light kiss. His large hand on my nape, and his arm around my waist, prevented me from moving away as he deepened the kiss. Krygor cleared his throat behind us when that kiss stretched too long. Ravik growled in annoyance against my lips, making me chuckle.
Releasing me with obvious reluctance, Ravik gave me a stern stare. “You return to me tonight.”
It wasn’t a request. Far from annoying me, it made me want to smile again. “Yes, yes, Magnar, I will.”
Not amused by my teasing tone, Ravik growled at me, but caressed my cheek gently. With a final warning glance at Gorav, he marched away with angry steps, shadowed by Krygor. Sighing, I hopped onto the shuttle with my security detail.
The forty-minute flight to Varrek’s estate felt like an eternity. Even working on my portable computer failed to distract me from my impatience. Although I’d put my consulting services on hold, my research labs never stopped experimenting and developing new technology based on specs I’d provided them. Over the past week, I’d been negligent in keeping up to date with the latest reports and providing the required feedback for my staff so they could pursue their efforts.
As we approached our destination, I rolled my eyes at the sight of at least another dozen of Krygor’s clansmen milling about the building. Talk about overkill. I clamped down on another wave of annoyance. This overprotectiveness was suffocating. I appreciated their intention and acknowledged that the Guldans represented a serious threat to me, not only because of my inheritance, but also as leverage against their Magnar. But this felt like a prison. I couldn’t go anywhere without an escort and couldn’t leave Ravik’s fortress without permission. That wouldn’t work in the long run.
Chasing away the somber thoughts, I turned my gaze to the one-story building made of dark stones and ash-colored wood. Tall, reinforced fences surrounded the property, including the landing pad. The drawn shutters on the tall windows all around it, the overgrown vegetation encroaching on the main path leading to the front door, and the covered solar panels on the roof offered ample indication that the place had been vacant for a while.
Interestingly enough, Varrek had refurbished an old hunter’s lodge located on the unclaimed lands at almost equal distance between the compounds belonging to Clan Leaders Hagan Lorvis and Norbek Arthol, two of the Fifteen. Despite the bordering forest a stone’s throw away from the house, Gorav assured me the place was safe. Only small prey dwelled in the vicinity; the larger creatures and predators roamed deeper in the thickest part of the forest which provided them with better camouflage.
The men watched us with undisguised curiosity as we walked up to the house. One of them approached us as we reached the staircase.
“We have secured the perimeter,” the man said to Gorav. “However, none of the old hunter access codes work on the door. Unless you have another way to hack it, we have some armored men prepared to break down the door. However, if it comes to that, we will need you to take the female to a safe distance first as we do not know what traps the Guldan may have set up.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I intervened. “I have broken through my brother’s security before. This shouldn’t be much different.”
Ignoring his dubious look, I swiftly climbed the three steps to the front porch while activating a perimeter scan from the interface on my armband. As expected, the Braxians had missed the real threat, deactivating only the decoy detectors and alarm systems that my brother had set up to lure potential intruders into a false sense of security. Aside from the Tuureans and me, pretty much anyone else would have been fooled by it, too. Even then, I couldn’t be certain I had detected everything. I pulled a wand-like device from the tool pouch hanging against my hip, the straps running across my chest. I calibrated it to the frequency of the security devices the Braxians had missed and sent a disruptor signal on that wavelength. Within seconds, each of them turned to inactive on my scanner.
They hadn’t been a direct threat. But had they remained active, whatever defense mechanism Varrek had inside the house would have been armed upon our entrance. Andthatcould have been lethal. I placed a magnetic descrambler on the door’s lock panel. While it would break through it, my brother liked having little surprises that would set off through the process and mess things up. Resting my palm inconspicuously next to the descrambler, I opened my senses, seeking the sparks. As each trap triggered, I pushed a disable command. Less than two minutes later, the door unlocked.
Gorav insisted on going in first. I repressed the urge to roll my eyes and gestured for him to proceed. The four other men that had traveled with us squeezed in ahead of me. I ran another scan, this time for traps.
“Stay here while we secure the house,” Gorav said.
“It’s better if I come with you since I can see all the traps on this device,” I argued, waving my forearm at him. “Like the one right over here in the wall lamp by the window.”
Gorav stared at me, surprised. He looked at the lamp, down at his armband, then back up at the lamp. “It doesn’t show on my scanner.”
“Exactly,” I said with a smirk.
He scrunched his face, somewhat disgruntled. It took nearly an hour going through the lodge, disabling traps. I didn’t understand why Varrek had so many in this single-story building. The spacious rooms included a dormitory, which had been turned into a lab, and a cold room which contained a sickeningly large quantity of Bliss, a highly addictive—and extremely deadly—recreational drug. Varrek had unleashed it on the unsuspecting population before we’d managed to shut down his operation. He’d added a wall in one corner of the common room, creating an office and work area, and then turned the large equipment and trap storage room into his bedroom.
Once reassured that everything was secured, Gorav gave the clansmen outside leave to return to their compound. Along with my four other escorts, he settled in the common room to work on some tasks on the portable computers and datapads they had brought.
While I wanted to further explore the house, for now, his computer held my interest. It took little time to hack into it, thanks to my recent experience at our family home on Guldar. Unfortunately, I soon realized there would be no quick wins. Many of the files were encrypted, each using a different algorithm. It would take days, if not weeks to unlock all of them without setting off a trap that could destroy or corrupt the entire system.
With a heavy sigh, I set to work.
Over the next week, I hacked into hundreds of files but the clients list continued to elude me. I should have been further into my investigation but too often kept getting distracted by some brilliant analysis, research assumptions, or mind blowing schematics for a new concept or prototype. Each time, my chest ached that such a genius had gone to waste, partially with my aid.
